When planning project aimed at increasing employment and career planning we are interested in cooperating with other organisations. In most cases, they are willing to cooperate, as this means receiving additional financial resources. However, they often struggle with shortages of adequately trained staff or lack of time, thus the cooperation being less productive. When trying to involve the Employment Service of Slovenia we noticed similar problems – lack of time and staff as well as administrative barriers.

Training programmes, workshops on career planning, personal growth, entrepreneurship, job-seeking, etc., are prepared by our organization or in cooperation with trained contractors. We are using foreign material available on the internet, newspaper articles and other resources, but generally rely on our own inventiveness. We would need more practically applicable tools – e.g. different tests and questionnaires, which would help participants in understanding their interests, talents and capabilities for performing various occupations. In order to perform quality counselling, counsellors would need regular training and updated information on new expert findings.

Similar services are provided by other organizations, among others also the Employment Service of Slovenia, but the provision differs from organization to organization. With aim of making programmes more uniform, compatible and improved in quality, wider cooperation would be reasonable during the process of programme planning and recruiting. Some participants get involved in several training programmes, provided by various organisations, whilst others stay empty-handed. Since the number of guidance providers is growing, it would be useful to set uniform quality standards and perform compulsory programme evaluation.

Reasons:

• Insufficient communication between organisations (lack of interest, time, resources and staff);
• Bureaucratic obstacles;
• Little opportunity for quality counsellor training;
• Absence of quality standards.

Consequences:

• Inappropriate counselling and information giving;
• Unavailability of information, absence of best-practice examples exchange, lack of tools.

Possible solutions:

• Better communication and cooperation between different actors;
• Financing projects with more partners;
• Developing an institution that would provide information and training.